CHF 10 million productivity improvement through new distribution centre in Heerlen
The new distribution centre in Heerlen successfully moved into operation at the end of the second quarter of 2022. The degree of automation of logistics has now risen from 50 per cent to 70 per cent, and capacity more than doubled from 12 million parcels per year to 27 million. This gives the facility sufficient capacity to scale up the number of e-prescriptions handled and process the volume from medpex. Thanks to productivity improvements from the state-of-the-art logistics, the Zur Rose Group is anticipating annual savings of CHF 10 million, with the first effects already in the current year.

CHF 8 million efficiency gains through integration of the medpex brand into the Heerlen facility
The DocMorris pharmacy will integrate the medpex brand into its operations in Heerlen and continue to run it. This step is a consequence of the planned closure of the owner-managed Stifts-Apotheke and its associated medpex online business in Ludwigshafen by the current proprietor at the end of October 2022. The Zur Rose Group is offering some 200 logistics employees and pharmaceutical technicians of the 350 employees at the Stifts-Apotheke the opportunity to continue working in Ludwigshafen and Heerlen. The logistics facility in Ludwigshafen will be retained and used by the Zur Rose Group to handle orders for non-pharmaceutical orders for the Germany segment; it has a capacity of seven million parcels per year. 36 jobs at the Zur Rose company Visionrunner GmbH providing administrative services for the Stifts-Apotheke will be cut. In accordance with its sense of social responsibility, Visionrunner is voluntarily offering these employees individual redundancy packages. Integrating the medpex brand, cutting complexity and capturing synergies will generate savings and efficiency gains totalling CHF 8 million per year.

Germany-wide roll-out of e-prescriptions to start on 1 September 2022
The trend towards using e-prescriptions is rising steadily. To date, more than 150,000 e-prescriptions^[3] have been filled. All quality criteria to complete the test phase by 31 August 2022 have therefore been met and the way is clear to implement e-prescriptions nationally. Roll-out across the country will be in stages, starting on 1 September 2022 with the Westfalen-Lippe region in the federal state of Nordrhein-Westfalen and the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, which have a total population of 11.2 million.

Along with a hard copy of the prescription code and the e-prescription app, the Federal Ministry of Health and gematik are also looking at other ways of transmission. Amongst other things, gematik is consulting with all parties involved on how it might be possible for prescriptions to be filled using the electronic healthcare card (eGK) as an additional digital process. For reasons of non-discrimination, this option ought to be open to online pharmacies too in the EU internal market. It will be necessary to put the necessary technical framework in place. The European Association of E-Pharmacies (EAEP) is already engaged in direct discussions about this with the Federal Ministry of Health to together identify a non-discriminatory and user-friendly solution for its members' millions of customers.

Outlook
The Zur Rose Group confirms the target announced earlier this year for 2022 at the adjusted EBITDA level of minus CHF 75 million to minus CHF 95 million. EBITDA break-even (adjusted) is expected for the 2023 financial year. To achieve this target, the measures in the break-even programme are being speeded up and will lead to a reduction of external revenue in 2022 in the mid-single digit percentage range. The Group confirms the medium-term EBITDA margin target of 8 per cent.

External revenue consists of the consolidated revenue of the Zur Rose Group plus online revenues of pharmacies supplied by the Zur Rose Group, less the consolidated revenue from supplying them.

The half-year report 2022 and presentation are available at www.zurrosegroup.com under “Investors & Media”, “Publications”.

Press release (PDF)